How Do I Find Non-Religious Resources for Fostering? - Weekend Wisdom

Question: I've been looking into a lot of resources and communities for foster parents, and it seems like many of them, especially in my area, approach fostering from a Christian perspective. I was raised Christian but am no longer comfortable in Christian spaces. How do I find community? 

Resources:

1. Laura the Foster Parent Partner 
2. Annie E. Casey Foundation
3. AdoptUSKids
4. Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption

Transcript

Tracy Whitney 0:01

I've been looking into a lot of resources and communities for foster parents, and it seems like many of them, especially in my area, approach fostering from a Christian perspective. I was raised as a Christian, but I am no longer comfortable in Christian spaces. How do I find community? Thank you. This weekend wisdom question comes to us from Elise. So welcome to Weekend Wisdom. Thanks for joining us. We're glad that you're here. Weekend Wisdom is our Saturday morning podcast that offers very specific strategies and practical tips to questions sent in to us by our listeners. So we're really glad that Elise sent this question in. One of the hardest parts of fostering can be realizing that you need support. So I really appreciate this question because I know that Elise is not alone in feeling this way. Many communities have foster care support systems that grew out of churches or other faith-based organizations. And while those spaces can be deeply meaningful and supportive for some people, they may not feel like they're emotionally safe or comfortable or the right fit for you. But what's important to remember is that you still need and deserve community and support for the work of fostering. You also deserve meaningful connections with others who share your values. And so you don't have to force yourself into a space that doesn't feel relevant or aligned to your belief system to become or to remain an active foster parent. But I do gently want to encourage you, Elise, and other listeners, to not give up on finding your people. Foster parenting is really hard to do in isolation. Kids who have experienced trauma often need caregivers who are regulated and supported and encouraged and connected. And these foster parents need parents and other people in their life who understand the emotional complexity of what this journey looks like. So that support network matters whether it comes from a church or a secular organization, a friend group or an online community, a therapist, extended family, or any combination of all of these means of support and encouragement. In a recent interview that I did with Laura, the foster parent partner, she talked a lot about the importance of building a support system before you hit the crisis point. Not because you're failing, but because fostering was never meant to be done alone. Sometimes we think that we only need support when things are going wrong. But honestly, support is what helps keep things from falling apart in the first place. And support looks different for every family. So for some people, it's going to be a formal support group. For others, it's one or two trusted friends that they can text after a hard visitation day. It might also be a therapist who understands trauma and foster care. It could be another foster parent whom you have met online who just gets what you're experiencing. It might be respite providers, supportive neighbors, grandparents, or a trusted caseworker. The point is that you should be building kind of a web of relationships around you and around your family. And every strand in that web matters. I think it also might help you, Elise, to broaden your definition of community. Sometimes we go specifically looking for foster parent groups and we feel discouraged if the available options don't fit us culturally, politically, spiritually, or emotionally. But community can also come from parenting spaces that are focused on trauma-informed care. They can come from communities where the focus is neurodiversity or attachment or caregiving in general. It doesn't have to be quite so specific as foster care. You may find your strongest support network in the spaces that weren't even designed exclusively for foster care, but they are still deeply understanding of how to parent kids from hard places or kids who are in hard places. Some wonderful and secular or broadly accessible organizations offer education, advocacy, and support for foster and adoptive families. And I'll list those in the show notes for you, but I'm going to talk about a couple right now. The Annie E. Casey Foundation has excellent resources about child welfare, family support, and systems change policy, that kind of thing. And their materials can help you better understand the bigger picture around foster care and family preservation. Adopt U.S. Kids offers practical foster and adoption resources, including information about support services and parent preparation. They also talk about things like reunification and birth-family connection and birth-family relationships. They also have educational materials that many foster families find quite approachable and welcoming, absent of like a spiritual element. The Dave Thomas Foundation offers foster care and adoptive parent education. They offer advocacy. They offer resources focused on permanency and supporting children in care. And of course, here at Creating a Family, we intentionally create resources that are evidence-based, trauma-informed, practical, and welcoming to families from many different backgrounds and many different cultures and many different beliefs. We have podcasts, articles, online courses, and other supportive resources designed to help your foster, adoptive, or kinship family feel less alone and more equipped to handle the journey ahead. I also want to encourage you to look beyond traditional foster care parent groups for your local support. So some communities offer things like trauma-informed parenting classes, foster parent associations not connected to a church, county or agency-led support groups, online foster parent meetups, therapeutic recreational programs, like things at the local Y, things at the Boys and Girls Club, that kind of thing. A lot of communities offer wellness groups for caregivers. And then there's also Facebook groups and Reddit communities that are centrally located to where you are, and they're moderated by foster parents in your community. You could also look for continuing education groups, and sometimes you'll make a connection with another member in that cohort or in that class that you're taking. Bottom line is when you try a group and it doesn't seem like a good fit, it doesn't mean that community isn't out there. It just means that you need to try another room, find something else that might fit. I think too many foster parents underestimate how long it's going to take them to find that community and find that support. The truth is that true community, true connection, and true supportive networks take time to build. One relationship at a time, one safe conversation at a time, one person who really understands, and then your network starts to grow because those people just keep showing up for you consistently and you keep showing up for them. So if you're listening to this, Elise or any other listener, and you're feeling a little disconnected or unsure of where you belong, please don't interpret that feeling as a sign that you shouldn't foster. And don't interpret that as a sign that you aren't going to find community. Instead, see it as information that your family needs support and you may need to work a little harder or hang in there a little longer to find the support system that fits what you need and that you can contribute to as well. And it's okay that it's going to take time. The most meaningful relationships in our lives often take time. The goal isn't to find a perfect community. The goal is to find people and spaces who can help you stay grounded, who show up for you in safe ways, who support you and your family, and who can keep showing up for you and the children in your care because you and the children in your home deserve that kind of care. Again, I will link this information of extra resources in the show notes for you. And I hope that it helps. Listeners, are you looking for non-faith-based resources? Do you know someone else who is looking for non-faith-based resources to support and strengthen their fostering or adoptive experience? Please take a moment to share this episode with a friend. We are so proud of the content that we gather and that strengthens all families regardless of their belief systems, and we know that this episode will probably hit home for them too. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.